Unit 10 Global Contemporary (1980–Present): Understanding Global Perspectives in Contemporary Art

Art and identity

Contemporary art that explores how people understand themselves and are understood by others through categories like gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, and culture, often emphasizing identity as shaped by power and representation.

Constructed identity

The idea that identity is shaped by language, media, history, and social power (not purely natural or fixed), and can be performed, negotiated, and redefined.

Mass-media aesthetics (in contemporary art)

Using the visual language of advertising, magazines, propaganda, and graphic design (bold text, high contrast, direct address) to critique the systems that shape public beliefs.

The gaze

A concept describing how artworks position viewers to look, and how that viewing relationship can reproduce or challenge power (especially around gender, sexuality, and race).

Diaspora

The dispersal of a people across different regions; in art, often linked to migration, hybrid identity, memory, and negotiating belonging across borders.

Cultural hybridity

The mixing of cultural symbols, materials, or styles that complicates “pure” national or ethnic identity and points to global exchange and historical entanglement.

Deconstructivism

An architectural approach that uses controlled fragmentation, unexpected angles, and disrupted symmetry to create a sense of instability/dislocation while remaining intentionally designed.

Green design (sustainable architecture)

Architecture that reduces environmental impact through energy efficiency, water conservation, responsible material choices, and climate/site-responsive strategies focused on systems and longevity.

Globalization (in contemporary art)

Increasing worldwide interconnectedness—movement of people, goods, images, capital, and ideas—shaping what art addresses and how it is produced, circulated, and valued.

Barbara Kruger, Untitled (Your body is a battleground)

1989 work using high-contrast photo and bold graphic text to confront mass communication; links women’s bodies to political struggle over reproduction, sexuality, and autonomy in public space.

Shirin Neshat, Rebellious Silence

1994 black-and-white photograph using frontal pose and text across skin (and sometimes a weapon) to create tension between individuality and ideology, probing faith, gender expectations, and political identity.

Jean-Michel Basquiat, Horn Players

1983 painting with expressive gesture and fragmented text that celebrates Black cultural figures while critiquing consumption of Black creativity; raw energy evokes improvisation and urgency linked to jazz and street culture.

Yinka Shonibare, The Swing (after Fragonard)

2001 life-size sculptural remake of a Rococo scene; West Africa–associated patterned fabric tied to global trade and a headless mannequin expose colonial entanglement, luxury, and complicity rather than simply “adding diversity.”

Faith Ringgold, Dancing at the Louvre

1991 narrative quilt that places African American figures in the Louvre (a symbol of the Western canon), using a medium associated with women’s labor/community storytelling to reframe who belongs in cultural institutions.

Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Trade (Gifts for Trading Land with White People)

1992 installation/assemblage using trade goods, text, and layered references to confront colonial land theft and the myth of “fair exchange,” building a visual argument rather than illustrating a single scene.

Pepón Osorio, En la Barbería no se Llora

1994 immersive installation that constructs a barbershop environment dense with objects and references, showing identity as lived social space shaped by community norms and everyday places.

Frank Gehry, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao

1997 deconstructivist-leaning museum with sweeping sculptural forms and metallic cladding; functions as a global-city icon tied to branding, tourism, and the Guggenheim international network.

Seattle Central Library (OMA/Rem Koolhaas and LMN)

2004 contemporary library that rethinks the “temple of books” by designing for multiple media and public gathering; uses bold geometry and visible structure to reflect information flow and civic function.

El Anatsui, Old Man’s Cloth

2003 hanging made from discarded bottle caps/metal that resembles luxurious textile but reveals consumption and waste; material choice points to global trade, colonial legacies, and context-dependent meaning through flexible installation.

Michel Tuffery, Pisupo Lua Afe (Corned Beef 2000)

1994 bull-like sculpture made from flattened corned beef cans; critiques imported canned food’s economic/health impacts in the Pacific by transforming evidence of global imports into a symbolic burdened animal form.

Xu Bing, A Book from the Sky

1987–1991 installation of book-like texts printed with invented unreadable characters; uses the authority of traditional formats to question how cultural legitimacy and scholarly power can be manufactured.

Julie Mehretu, Stadia II

2004 large-scale layered painting combining architectural plans, marks, and sweeping lines to evoke crowds and arenas; density and overlay act as an analogy for overlapping global systems (spectacle, politics, movement, surveillance).

Christo and Jeanne-Claude, The Gates

2005 temporary public artwork in Central Park requiring extensive permits, fundraising, planning, and media circulation; shows how contemporary public art operates through large-scale logistics and global attention networks.

Maya Lin, Vietnam Veterans Memorial

1982 memorial using a black granite wall cut into the earth with inscribed names; minimalist form, reflective surface, and a descent/ascent pathway create personal mourning and challenge heroic triumphal narratives.

Wangechi Mutu, Preying Mantra

2006 collage with hybrid figures critiquing exoticization and violence imposed on women’s bodies (especially Black women); collage mirrors identity as constructed from fragments of media, stereotype, and lived experience.